Lithium ion batteries are the hottest trend in today’s energy landscape. In some parts of the country, utility companies are paying commercial property owners to use these systems during peak times, thus taking pressure off the grid when everyone is running their air conditioners at full blast. These energy storage systems (ESS) are often located right on the other side of the wall from cubicles and offices.
When large lithium ion batteries get hot, they can create problem — a big problem. At 450 degrees, these batteries can explode, and studies have shown that Li-ion batteries can have “thermal runaway” in which a fire causes a chain reaction that sets off the batteries like bombs.
Lithium ion batteries also start venting explosive gases at 158 degrees — which can easily occur in the tightly packed battery pods if left unattended. This is why Li-ion batteries are banned from the cargo holds of airplanes, and why hoverboards explode into flames when their chargers cause the batteries to overheat.
Traditional alarm systems in battery rooms will sound alerts when a smoke or a fire is present, but that is too late to prevent a potentially more serious event such as every Li-ion battery in the rack exploding. By that time, first responders are looking at damage control rather than prevention.
OneEvent’s Sentinel operating System (SoS) will counter this dangerous scenario by providing a true prevention tool for building owners. The system employs edge sensors and connects to existing smart battery systems to continuously monitor ESS rooms. The data collected is transmitted wirelessly to our cloud-based data structures.
This data is used to form a baseline for an ESS and its environment. This is used along with proprietary Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create alerts that notify property owners, facility managers and even first responders if a dangerous situation is developing. This information can be instantly accessed on mobile devices, web-based dashboards, and first responder information portals.
The idea behind this technology is that if a fire is already occurring, you are too late. Our solution monitors multiple types of data to alert in advance of a battery room exploding into flames. This implementation not only potentially prevents property loss and risk to humans, but also is a boon to insurance companies that will be able to save money when disasters are averted, or benefit from the analytics if an event occurs.